Carl Hartung wrote:
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 11:11, Brian Green wrote: ...
I've thrown a couple of tarballs in (without problem ...)
I suggest you look into 'checkinstall,' which comes with the distribution. It can be used to build rpm packages from tarballs, so you can remove the software with YaST (or CLI rpm) if it breaks your system.
Thanks for this - I also plan to explore the build utility build.rpm (Novell: cool solutions home) to build RPMs from tarballs. Any experience of this tool? The article, by Paul MacKay, ends with "... and use the rpm command:" Can I assume, as the article suggest it, that YaST2 uses the rpm command (but see below)?
If you use a separate /home partition, you can move '/home/you' to '/home/.you' and install "fresh" without formatting /home.
I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. Specifically, in my case, I have separate partitions for /, /home, and /local (and swap). I did a clean install to a freshly formated '/' partition, and I (had to - the settings were lost!) re-specified the mount points for the other partitions, in particular /home . However, I observed some minor quirky behavior when, for example, Firefox was next first run. It was initially a little confused, and only on the second run did it collect all the previous settings (a "feature" of this Firefox implementation?) ... But, (and back to the point) how would I restore my settings (Firefox say) from /home/.me to /home/me ? Sure, I should backup all my data folders (Personal warning: the last time you did a backup of your data prior to a major system upgrade you later discovered that the newly installed restore application could not read the backup data - it was incompatible ...) so, what's the best way to handle all the /.xx xx folders?
2) I'm really (really!) frustrated with YaST2!
This is one of the oldest complaints about setting up installation sources in YaST.
...
regards,
- Carl
OK: I've calmed down. YaST2 good, tarballs bad; YaST2 good, ... ; ... YaST2 does work: * download all the (extra) RPMs you need to a folder (eg. home/me/DownLoads/RPM) * Run YaST2 = 'Installation Source' (select and delete any previous RPM folder entry) - Add - 'Local Directory ...' - 'Browse ...' for your RPM directory - 'OK' - ignore the "There is no product info ,,," warning message with 'Continue' - 'Refresh On or Off' i.e. you want it 'Off' (this removes subsequent errors) - 'Finish' = Then click: 'Software Management' YaST2 will then access and refresh (if set) all the CD/DVD/ftp/http sources you have setup including your local RPM folder! All the dependency/availability checks etc are then done correctly by YaST2. Notes: 1) Don't delete RPMs from your download folder - they are still referenced by YaST2 and you may get subsequent dependency errors 2) If you add new RPMs to your download folder recreate the Source (delete any previous RPM folder entry in YaST2 and then re-enter it (i.e. as above)) I've used the above to get amaroK 1.3.7 working whilst all the/my ftp/http sources/mirrors still reference 1.3.1 Now to follow your advice and see what's required to fool YaST2 into being able to 'Refresh' the local RPM folder ... Cheers Brian